Apple boss declares victory over BlackBerry
By Gurmukh Singh, IANSTuesday, October 19, 2010
TORONTO - With Apple posting record profits amid zooming sales of iPhones and iPads, CEO Steve Jobs declared victory over main rival and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM).
“We have now passed RIM, and I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable feature,” Jobs told the Canadian media in a conference call after Apple’s astounding results Monday.
“We are out to win this one,” Job said.
The BlackBerry smart phone has been the leader in the North American market for many years now. But iPhones and Google Android devices have almost toppled the BlackBerry from the perch.
Apple posted a huge 70 percent jump in profits in fourth quarter results, reporting net revenue of $4.31 billion as against $2.53 billion during the same period last year.
Record sales of iPads and Mac computers zoomed Apple’s total earnings to $20.34-billion, up from $12.2 billion a year ago.
With its sales of 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, Jobs said Apple has “handily” beaten RIM, which sold 12.1 million BlackBerry smart phones during the period.
Blaming RIM for putting off developers by employing multiple operating systems, Jobs told the Globe and Mail: “They (RIM) must move beyond their area of strength and comfort into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company. I think it is going to be a challenge for them.”
The Apple boss also took the opportunity to have a swipe at BlackBerry maker’s much-smaller PlayBook tablet to be unveiled later this year.
Dismissing PlayBook’s seven-inch screens as too small, he told the paper that consumers will need to use “sand paper” to grind their fingers down to the appropriate size.
“The 10-inch screen size is the minimum required to have great tablet apps. We don’t think you can make a great tablet with a seven-inch screen. We think it’s too small to express the software that people want to put on these things,” Jobs said.
He also didn’t spare the other major rival Google, calling its Android operating system “fragmented”.
(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)
